It Was A Costco Day!

I have rheumatoid arthritis, a painful, energy sapping inconvenience in my happy life.  Yesterday was one of those days, but we needed stuff from Costco, stadium-sized, with mile long aisles of endless hard cement floors.  It looks different when you don't feel in tip-top shape.  My big sweetie recognizes my challenge at keeping up with his long strides and patiently slows for me. I am distracted by clothes and books, he waits. He is sidelined by tools and sports equipment and I breeze past, knowing he will easily catch up. I love him. I love that he understands that, after doing the Costco Mile, I have no energy left to help put away a grocery cart full of things we didn't plan to purchase and have no room for in the tiny kitchen of our 1300 sq ft retirement home into which we recently downsized. While I separate massive packets of hamburgers and pork chops into freezer bags of 3 each, he hides away a few granddaddy oak trees' worth of toilet paper in a garage cabinet that I cannot reach. The trash bags are too heavy for me to lift. Thank God for a car with a trunk massive enough to stash away five basketball players.

Costco is a store so huge, it would make people from third world countries cry at the excess. I wander down the aisles and get to a point that I could just collapse on the floor and cry from exhaustion.  But I don't. Mark is a dear and realizes my predicament and offers to get me a wheelchair or motorized cart.  I usually just man up and press on.  Mark makes sure there is something simple for us to eat after we finally get home and unload. I don't care much for the already prepared meals.  I am a better cook than the folks at Costco kitchens, mixing up foods for the masses.

I like their chicken alfredo, nope, too many carbs. Instead, we had my very favorite insty meal that Costco offers: hot roasted chicken and a spinach salad with cheese, cran-raisins, boiled eggs, and the most delicious poppy seed dressing. Markle-Farkle, my sweetheart, if you are reading this - Thank you for taking such good care of me, thank you for never letting us run out of toilet paper. And thank you for fixing blueberries and strawberries in heavy cream for dessert.